150 schoolchildren from across London were chosen to take part in workshops with tech entrepreneurs at Google Campus in east London. Photo: Google PR

Google needs to do more to engage with black and minority ethnic people in local communities, Diane Abbott has said, describing the company's east London Campus project as "a spaceship landed in the East End, removed from the community it is in the middle of".

Speaking on the first anniversary of Google Campus, Abbott, who represents the neighbouring borough of Hackney & South Newington, told the Guardian that she had been surprised by the lack of diversity of such an important project for east London.

"This is a community that is two-thirds black and minority ethnic and yet Google looks very different to that. Taking Google at its word, that it really wants to include the community, it really has to do a lot more to involve black and Asian kids."

Abbott also said there are much more deep-rooted problems with how technology is taught in schools.

"The people who live around Silicon Roundabout have so much potential but the one thing I hear is that children are just not being taught the skills they need," she said. "There needs to be a look at the curriculum and the dysfunctional gap between computer science and what is happening in the tech industry."

Abbott welcomed the open day initiative at Campus, in which 150 London schoolchildren were invited to meet and learn from local entrepreneurs, pitching their own business ideas and experimenting with Raspberry Pi computers. But she said she would like to see Google develop more of these projects in schools and colleges, particularly to encourage female talent, and make the Campus building more inviting for the local community.

Diane Abbott at the Campus open day with London schoolchildren. Photo: Google PR

Campus was launched in partnership with TechHub, Central Working and SeedCamp to provide workspace, mentoring and networking for early-stage entrepreneurs. In its first 12 months it hosted 850 events for 60,000 people and has 10,000 members with 22 nationalities. Ethnicity of members has not been monitored but membership is open to all, via the Campus website.

Most members are aged between 25-34 and women make up one in four – far high than the ratio of one in nine at the neighbouring Tech City initiative.